Cowboy Bebop is a title that many anime fans are familiar with. Arguably, it is one of the best anime series ever made, but it can still be recognized as a great work of art created by the show's director; Shinichiro Watanabe. The truth is, this isn't Watanabe's only show. Although it first aired in 2004 (about five years after Cowboy Bebop last aired), Samurai Champloo can also be recognized as another of Watanabe's "masterpieces." Even though he uses the same style as the basis to create both Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop, each show offers a completely different experience. What makes them unique from other anime is an element that can be known as “genre mixing”. The way Watanabe mixes genres between Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop will be analyzed and compared to better understand what it is about. The first piece that will be examined is Cowboy Bebop. Much of Watanabe's style consists of "genre mixing," and Cowboy Bebop's most notable example of "genre mixing" comes from the show's fairly interesting Western influences. One western genre that can be clearly seen in the title is that of the cowboy western genre or, more precisely, spaghetti western. For those who don't know what the spaghetti western genre is, a great example would be a classic film like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, starring Clint Eastwood. Specifically in the fifth episode (The Ballad of Fallen Angels), Spike (the main protagonist) enters a church to meet and save his fellow bounty hunter, Faye. Spike and the audience know at this point that a group of henchmen led by the main antagonist, Vicious, are the ones holding her hostage and that this meeting is only to ambush Spike. After he comes in and has a quick chat with Vicious, a henchman... middle of paper... jumps from one of Fuu's (the only main female protagonist) fingers. So, the first situation ends with Jin (the third and final main protagonist) killing a nobleman's supposedly "badass" samurai bodyguards in style and then taking the money of the man he had just saved. The other situation picks up with Mugen making an incorrect mathematical observation stating that each of the delinquents' lives is worth five dumplings each out of 100 that were offered by Fuu to save her life when there are only about eight of them, which ends with Fuu be saved. The show takes death very lightly for the most part, except when the main characters are about to die. While Samurai Champloo has less of a mix of genres within the show, the genres in it are more elaborate and fleshed out in what they offer. There are also other genres not mentioned but, again, these are some of the most important.